Article #2: Tell me whats defamatory about this?
It is impossible not to notice the striking resemblance between how
the NKF operated and how the PAP runs . It would take someone
foolishly blind not to be concerned with how our financial reserves
and CPF savings are dealt with. Here are the similarities.
Mind Boggling salaries
Mr Durai was paid $50,000 a month. He charged an average of almost
$33,000 a month to his corporate credit card.
He was paid overtime and given backdated salary increments. His
leave that was not taken were converted to cash.
And yet, Mrs Goh Chok Tong, in all her wisdom, brushed these aside
and defended Mr Durai saying that his salary of $600,000 is
peanuts.
Compare this to what her husband, Mr Goh, said when the prime
minister wanted to pay himself $160,000 a month and the ministers
$120,000 a month: You pay peanuts, you get monkeys.
Peanuts seem to be a rather popular plant in PAP circles.
Mr Durai had apparently forgotten that his job was to help people
stricken with kidney disease, not to enrich himself.
If he wanted to earn the kind of salaries that corporate managers
earned he should join a business enterprise whose mission is to
maximize profit, not a charitable organization like the NKF whose
mission is to provide medical assistance to those who unfortunate
enough to need it.
Again, how is this different from the ministers who claim that
without the high salaries, they would not have the incentive to
serve in the cabinet?
The simple answer is: There will be others who are no less capable,
and even more dedicated, willing to serve this country.
Like Mr Durai, the ministers cannot claim that they deserve to get
the mind-boggling salaries because of the work they do, especially
when their performances have been questionable given the hardships
that Singaporeans continue to have to face in todays high
cost.
Lack of transparency
Right up till Mr Durais ill-fated court room appearance, few
people knew about the shenanigans that were going on within
NKF.
Everything was shrouded in secrecy until the jaw-dropping
revelations recorded in the KPMG audit.
How does this compare to the PAP? The Government of Singapore
Investment Corporation (GIC) is a business entity set up, and
chaired by Mr Lee Kuan Yew to manage and invest our national
reserves.
Incredibly, the GIC will not give an account of its investments
(how and where our money is invested, and the profit/losses they
record) to the people. Even Parliament is not privy to the
information. The GIC operates in secrecy.
The HDB is no better. It continues to stonewall longstanding
questions about the actual cost of building the flats and the
profits it makes when it sells these flats to the people.
What about the CPF? Many Singaporeans are still concerned that the
Fund is broke and that is the reason why the Government comes up
with all these schemes to retain our CPF savings even when we
retire.
Defamation suits
Singaporeans have know this for a long time but it needed the NKF
scandal to drive home the point: The use, or rather abuse, of
defamation laws in this country has led to a situation where
wrong-doings cannot be exposed.
Two Singaporeans, Mr Archie Ong and Ms Tan Kiat Noi, had raised the
alarm on the abuses of NKF funds, accusing NKF officials of paying
themselves obscenely high salaries and bonuses, and flying first
class on business trips.
Mr TT Durai promptly smacked them with lawsuits.
Unable to fight the huge sums of money involved in a defamation
suit, Mr Ong and Ms Tan capitulated and settled the case
out-of-court, both having to pay damages and costs amounting to
tens of thousands of dollars. This happened in 1997 and 1998.
This had the effect of silencing all critics of NKF.
It wasnt until 2005 that Mr TT Durai decided to sue the Straits
Times for making similar accusations against the NKF.
The difference was that this time, the Straits Times had deeper
pockets than the NKF and could contest the suit all the way.
The truth spilled out and we now know that NKF officials had not
only flown first class and paid themselves bonuses of up to 14
months, (not to mention Mr Durais $600,000 slalary) but had also
installed gold-plated taps, bought a fleet of luxury cars, and took
trips to !
In other words, Mr Ong and Ms Tan were right. The only thing they
were guilty of was that they were not rich enough to fight Mr Durai
in court.
Does this remind you of the PAP?
Its officials, strarting from Mr Lee Kuan Yew on down, regularly
sue their political opponents.
The cases of Mr J B Jeyaretnam, Mr Tang Liang Hong, and Dr Chee
Soon Juan are just a few examples.
Authoritarian control
It is obvious now that the NKF was run in an autocratic manner. The
KPMG report said: Power was centred around one man, and was
exercised in an ad-hoc manner through Mr Durai and his coterie of
long serving assistants.
Is not power in centred around one party, if not one
individual?
With the PAP monopolizing power and making sure that no one has the
means to challenge that hold on power (by banning protests,
introducing GRCs, suing political opponents, making legitimate
democratic actions criminal offences, etc.) are we not witnessing
the NKF but on a larger and national scale?
If there is a lesson that the NKF fiasco has taught us, it is that
good governance cannot do without democratic practices which
include openness, transparency and accountability.
The use of the media
It would have been impossible for the NKF to raise the kind of
money they did if it werent for the use of MediaCorp to stage all
the charity shows and using teary-eyed artistes to pull at the
heart-strings of donors.
With control of the media, the PAP Government has likewise been
able to present good news to the people and take credit for them
(justified or not), hide the bad news, and portray the opposition
in the most undesirable light possible.
Again, without a free media to expose the excesses of the
Government, Singaporeans will never know what is going behind the
scenes and officials like Mr Durai and the PAP will continue to use
their victorious lawsuits as a measure of competence and absence
of wrongdoing.
